“As a reminder, the booking fee is always included in the fare you see before you request,” reads an Uber message to its users. “Booking fees support rider and driver safety initiatives, as well as other operational costs.”

This news organization has reached out to Uber seeking additional information.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, who is in Dayton today, said the “entire state” mourns the loss of Morelli and Joering.

“In the days since their passing, we’ve heard stories of their incredible service to their community, their fellow officers and their families. We can never repay them or their loved ones for their service and sacrifice, but today we honor their memory and lift up the entire Westerville community and all those who knew them,” he said.

News Center 7 will have a crew in Westerville and will have the latest online and on News Center 7.

Wright State faces declining enrollment and higher health care costs while it grapples with the outlines of millions of dollars in cuts to avoid deficit spending and being put on a state fiscal watch, officials said.

“We must continue to be realists together while we maintain our passion for this university,” Douglas A. Fecher, chairman of the Board of Trustees, told dozens of faculty members and others gathered for the board meeting Friday. “We simply do not have access to the same level of resources that we once had in the past.”

“It will demand more hard choices and hard sacrifice,” he said. “Terrible decisions remain and they must be made.”

Last June, Wright State cut nearly $31 million out of its fiscal year 2018 budget in response to years of overspending, and to raise its reserve fund to $6 million. WSU needs to cut an additional $10.5 million because of enrollment issues, and to cover additional scholarship and fellowship costs, this newspaper has reported.

Members of the American Association of University Professors and faculty members rallied against the cuts Friday, saying they have diminished Wright State’s core mission of education by reducing instructors and classes and creating uncertainty and anxiety among faculty, staff and students.

Senate Faculty President Travis E. Doom told the board he and other faculty members have had questions from students about whether they would be able to complete their degree programs and how the cuts would impact their studies.

“This term, the university remarked in a prepared statement that there is no chance that Wright State University is going to close,” he said. “The fact that the university felt the need to make this statement is chilling. The fact that our community thought this was newsworthy is horrifying.”

The AAUP has said the administration has offered a three-year contract with no raises, reduced benefits and higher health care costs amounting to a pay cut.

Nearly 90 percent of AAUP members eligible to vote have voted yes on a strike authorization if a deal is not reached, according to the union. Unresolved bargaining issues include employment security and furloughs, teaching workloads, maintaining summer teaching opportunities, and proposals that would cut pay and health benefits, the labor organization says.

Dan Slilaty, a WSU mathematics professor and AAUP member, said Wright State had gone on a “budget-cutting spree” that protects administration and trustee priorities and “slashes” the university’s core mission.

He said about 580 faculty members who teach at the university account for about 17 percent of its budget.

“What we the faculty demand is that all future cuts to the university’s budget be made in the irresponsible, multi-million dollar athletic budget and the extreme salaries and bloat of the upper administration and in risky side ventures,” he said to audience applause.

“If a strike is the only way in which meaningful shared governance is going to happen, if a strike is the only way to stop this reckless disregard for the core mission of the university, then I will vote for a strike, and I believe my colleagues will as well,” he added.

Wright State has made no decision on furloughing employees, but the policy enacted Friday allows the university to impose unpaid days off work for non-union employees should they become necessary.

Any furloughs of AAUP members would have to be contractually negotiated, said Marty Kich, president of the Wright State chapter of the labor organization.

The university and the AAUP are headed to fact-finding in April, he said.

He added the university should spend more time finding new revenue sources.

“I think we have a high probability that we’re going to end up on fiscal watch and we need to make sure that we’re focused on that revenue growth,” he said in an interview. “We can’t put the entire problem on the backs of the employees. We need to be generating revenue.”

David M. Butkovinsky, a long-time WSU accounting professor and AAUP member, told trustees the cuts would hurt both students’ education and the retention and recruitment of faculty.

“The majority of the faculty believes the administration is using the threat of fiscal watch as a convenient excuse to reduce faculty compensation even though by the administration’s own admission, that threat has passed,” he said.

Springboro to spend $200,000 on land for new park

SPRINGBORO — The Springboro City Council authorized the city manager to pay $190,000 for 5.8 acres of residential property on Lytle-Five Points Road and shift $200,000 in city funds to pay for the land.

The votes during Thursday’s council meeting came on two legislative items added to the agenda and approved on first readings.

Supporters say the new park would help serve residents in an area where most of the city’s growth has happened.

The land is valued at $76,270 by the Warren County Auditor’s Office. A home on the property has been removed and a sign indicated it was still up for sale on Friday.

During Thursday’s council work session before the formal meeting, Councilwoman Janie Ridd asked what would happen if the Clearcreek Twp. Board of Trustees decided not to collaborate with the city on the park.

“We have a lot of options,” Pozzuto said, including leaving the land as green space or reselling it.

On Thursday, the council adjourned into another executive session before returning to approve the purchase during an open meeting.

“While the city has over 400 acres of park land / public open space, most of it lies in the west and southwest parts of the city. There aren’t any public parks in the northeast area of the city, where most of the residential growth has been over the past 10-15 years,” Pozzuto said in a email this morning.

Before the votes, Pozzuto indicated the land could be developed as a park or left as green space.

With Councilman Jim Chmiel absent, the vote on each item was 6-0.

“This will allow the city to develop a park close to many of the newer neighborhoods that have been developed recently. The hope is to create a passive park that would contain open space, picnic shelter(s), playground(s), a small paved walking trail, etc.,” Pozzuto added Friday.

The city’s North Park is 2.4 miles away, across Ohio 741, Main Street in Springboro.